In this PopTech 2005 session, initially Ivan Marovic presents sections of a PBS video to show a little history on what happened five years earlier in Serbia during the Otpor (resistance) movement. At that time, Ivan had been an engineering student at Belgrade University and one of the student organizers who helped bring down Slobodan Milosovic.

After the amazing success of the student political group, Otpor, Ivan Marovic had received many requests from groups around the world asking how they did it. In time, he found it difficult to keep up with the demand for information and knowledge. This led to him partnering with BreakAway Games to create a very unique game to help reach people, and transfer knowledge.

During the Otpor movement, they made use of local kids as the best way to keep the drumbeat of discontent going and non-violent strategies to move toward democracy in the region. Ivan Marovic talks about how the Otpor movement grew in their minds. They even created a congress. It was their perception of who and what they were that became reality. Through Otpor, they were eventually successful in overthrowing Milosovic's regime.

Ivan Marovic goes on to discuss the traditional ways to learn how to effect change within a society, such as books and movies, and compares these methods to learning hands-on through a brand new game set within a virtual world.

He began working on this new game, called 'A Force More Powerful,' a little over two years prior to this session. Within this virtual world, players manage every aspect of their movement, resources and characters to apply real world principles of human nature, conflict, the process of resistance, and ultimate successful resolution.

Through 'A Force More Powerful,' players can practice strategic scenarios such as battling corruption and social problems such as pain and suffrage, discrimination against women, or even to overthrow a dictatorship. Players can also use the Scenario Editor to create their own scenarios. A truly unique and innovative way of working through real life situations to see how effective given strategies might be before attempting them in the real world.

This talk was from the Serious Games session at Pop!Tech. The other speakers in this session were Edward Castronova and Steven Berlin Johnson. The question and answer period can be heard at the end of Steven Berlin Johnson's talk.